


Glacis

by LittleLostGirl



Category: Bill Skarsgard - Fandom, Bob Gray - Fandom, IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King, Robert "Bob" Gray - Fandom
Genre: Andy Muschietti - Freeform, Bill Skarsgard - Freeform, F/M, IT: Chapter Two, It: Chapter One, Stephen King - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:13:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23909035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleLostGirl/pseuds/LittleLostGirl
Summary: Bob and Dee’s lives are about to be turned upside down, so the two of them decide to get a fresh start by purchasing a ramshackle cottage in the middle of the woods. Little do they know that this is only the beginning of their descent into chaos.
Relationships: Bob Gray/Original Female Character(s), Robert "Bob" Gray/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 2





	Glacis

What inspired the move was supposed to bring us joy. We envisioned a mountain of joy that we could climb as a family, hand-in-hand while basking in the beauty around us. What we got instead was devastation, an avalanche that we could never have predicted. We never anticipated the crushing weight of our neglect in heeding the subtle rumbling of the ground beneath us.

For partners who had only seen four seasons as a married couple, the news that we were expecting our first child rang bittersweet in our ears, and the felicity of first-time parenthood came swaddled in anxiety. Bob and I were confident in the fact that the love we had to give was abundant, and that our child would never want for affection and support, but we also weren’t fools. We knew that raising a child took so much more than that. 

Bob and I didn’t have much. Both of our parents had been gone long enough for us to smile at their memory rather than lament over their loss, and our friends were few and far between. The truth is, Bob was my best friend and I was his. We’d found each other in the twilight of our youth, we’d shed the skin of juvenility together and walked into adolescence hand-in-hand, our grip never faltering as we stumbled through the uncertainty of adulthood.

To say that it was all bad would have been a lie. In a time where work was scarce and a full meal was a rarity, our love and laughter was bountiful. Having our heat shut off didn’t feel so bad when the two of us could make each other laugh until our cheeks grew hot and our bellies stung with mirth. Even when the blackness was too dark for the silvery glow of laughter to penetrate, we’d hold each other. We’d hold each other until our skin became hot wax and we melted together, we’d hold each other until the sounds of our heartbeats, pounding like voodoo drums in our chest, lulled us to sleep.

Our way of life wasn’t always easy but it worked for us. However, Bob and I both knew that you needed more than love and laughter to raise a child, and if we were being given the chance to be parents, we wanted to do it right. That’s when we found the cottage.

The cottage had been Bob’s idea, and although I was apprehensive about it at first, the way his eyes lit up when he spoke of it, persuaded me otherwise. Bob and I had never owned property, we’d never had the means and we’d never felt the need, until we were faced with the hatch of new responsibility.

Bob sold the cottage to me as though it was fate, as though the cottage had been waiting for us to find it and as though it was ours before we’d even purchased it. Bob claimed the cottage had sought him out, and it would be an affront to the universe if we were to ignore it. My husband had spent the last few months working for the circus. It was grunt work that we knew would not last forever, but it was work nonetheless. It was income we could not afford to go without. While tending to the grounds, picking up the remnants of the previous night’s merriment, Bob came upon a page from a day old copy of the local newspaper. The cottage stared back at him, decaying and begging to be brought back to life.

The cottage was a steal, and although it needed work, Bob insisted we were capable of restoring it. He insisted that underneath the rotting wood and broken window panes, lay our fairy tale. We could grow our own food; plump red tomatoes, butternut squash and runner beans. We could get a few goats and some chickens, gorge ourselves on milk, eggs and goats cheese. Bob painted our new life to me in intricate detail and vivid technicolor, and I liked what I saw. I saw our little girl, sandy haired and blue-eyed, never having to go hungry and never having to endure the same hardship we had.

Bob reasoned that change was upon us whether we liked it or not. It would hit us like a tidal wave eventually and diving head-first into placid waters before the swell was the most logical approach. If things were going to change for us, they might as well change completely.

Our decision was not an easy one to make, but once we’d made it, the excitement overrode the anxiety that, up until that point, had been bubbling in our gut. The promise of metamorphosis sucked the fear from our wounds like it was venom, and the two of us felt the vigor return to our bodies. We sold off our belongings one by one, until we were left with nothing but the clothes on our backs, and our old pick-up which Robert had inherited from his father before he passed. We scraped together every last penny we had. Finally, after weeks of nervous anticipation, and the promise of a life that seemed more like a fever dream than reality, we purchased the cottage.

With nothing much to pack up, we left the only home we’d ever known as a couple behind us, and drove north until the town dissolved into lush green forest and open roads. Bob assured me that the fresh country air would be good for me, that our child would benefit from the serenity and peace that our remote new home allowed us, and when I rolled my window down and breathed in the scent of fresh pine needles and the promise of rain, I knew he was right.

Leaving Derry behind us was more liberating than it was sad. It felt like a weight lifting off of my shoulders and, when I looked over at Bob behind the wheel, his smile told me that he felt it too. The warmth of our shared joy spread through me like treacle and I wanted to revel in it, closing my eyes as we raced towards our new life, the cool summer wind combing through my hair and Bob’s hand in mine.

I must have dozed off at some point. The clunking of the pick-up truck beneath us woke me as we turned off the main road and down a gravel path. While on the main road, we’d been flanked by towering pines and elms, now we were surrounded, completely enveloped by an overabundance of emerald, jade and chartreuse, reminding me just how isolated we would be.

As we ambled down the gravel road I straightened in my seat, peering out into the dense foliage in the hope of catching my first glimpse of the cottage. Only the wilderness stared back, moss covered and buzzing with the voices of a thousand cicadas. As though sensing my impatience, Bob leaned over and gave my knee a reassuring squeeze.

“Almost there, darling,” he told me, his fingers flexing on the steering wheel as he fought to contain the excitement that rippled through him. It buzzed electric and I felt it like a static shock when Bob briefly turned from the road to plant a kiss on my cheek.

After about a mile the cottage finally came into view, and to anyone else, it might’ve seemed like more of an ode to senescence than something pulled from the pages from a children’s story. My eyes, rose-tinted and glossy with hope saw paradise within its four walls.

My hand was already on the door handle before Bob had even stopped the truck. The car door creaked in protest as I pushed it open and my feet found the pine covered dirt as the truck came to a stop in front of our new home. I stepped out of the truck and marveled at it. I marveled at the dilapidated porch adorned in delicate, green vines that weaved labyrinthine through the surrounding railing, and between the floorboards. Bob moved around the front of the truck and stopped beside me, throwing one long, pale arm over my shoulders.

“I know she needs some work, but what d’you think?” he inquired softly, studying my expression intently, searching for an unspoken answer in my expression.

The truth was that although the cottage was in bad shape and I knew that its revival would come with great sacrifice, it was ours, and we had worked hard for it. Its potential was simply waiting to be unearthed under layers of wood rot and dry leaves. Despite all of those things, one thought stood out to me and resonated, ringing and ricocheting off the corners of my mind, flooding me with a warmth that filled me from the toes up. Our baby girl and the cottage would be growing together, taking shape and transforming until they both stood strong and beautiful, readying themselves to house our hearts.

I turned away from our ramshackle cottage to look at Bob, my eyes brimming with tears and my cheeks flushed. My Bob, my Robert, he looked terrified as he waited for my response, as though he assumed my dewy eyes augured immense disappointment.

My hands, that had previously been resting on either side of my face in a vain attempt to stop a smile from spreading across my cheeks, found Bob’s jaw and gently tugged him down to meet my eyes.

“It’s perfect, Robert,” I whispered, pressing a soft, reassuring kiss to his lips. He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to mine and after a moment of nothing but the deafening shriek of cicadas, he let out a relieved puff of breath and smiled. His long arms found my waist and pulled me flush against him, the happiness radiating off of his body like ultraviolet rays. It seeped into my skin, bringing the joy in me to a boil until it bubbled out of my mouth in peals of laughter.

In the back of my mind I knew that the days to come would be unforgiving, that the sweltering summer sun would not be merciful, our empty pockets would not take pity on us, and that Bob and I had one last stretch of hardship to endure before we found the Garden of Eden. However, the bird’s eye view of the two of us standing in front of our new home, so wrapped up in each other that we looked like one entity against the backdrop of dry grass, cast those thoughts into darkness. If I had only taken a moment to look deeper I might have noticed that in those shadows lurked something else, something far more sinister and threatening, peering at us from the shadows with jaundice eyes, lying in wait to pull us in and devour us.

**Author's Note:**

> Here it finally is! The first part of my Bob Gray fic, Glacis. I’ll be real with y’all it’s a slow start and we’re still establishing things, but I hope you’ll hang around and join me, Bob and Dee on this journey.


End file.
